The New Sustainable Office Environment

By Martin Leggett

While the ultimate environmentally sustainable office may well be the home office – at least until the workforce ceases to commute in gasoline-powered vehicles – truly sustainable offices are no longer the preserve of futurists. Sustainable buildings are seen as flag bearers for corporate social responsibility and increasingly adorn the modern city. And sustainability is no longer an afterthought – it is worked in from the ground up, with the designer's blueprints reaching out to encompass the whole ecosystem supporting their architectural flights of fantasy.

'Most sustainable office' in Netherlands

A case in point is the Bussumse Watertoren, which earned the accolade of 'most sustainable office building in the Netherlands' in 2011. It is a radical re-imagining of an abandoned water tower in the town of Bussum, where the needs of its occupants – heat, light, air and water – are met on-site in an environmentally-sensitive fashion.

That has led to the 4,400 m² office-cum-tower to be given one of the highest GreenCalc ratings in Europe. As the buildings chief architect, Bob Custers, told Circles of Architects, “We aimed for 800 points on the Environment-Index-Building; we ultimately got 1,028. Every aspect of sustainability was considered in this project.”

Energy built-in

Energy consumption is the biggest burden that office buildings place on our finite resources; and that is where the most design effort was expended. Solar panels were added to the green-clad roof, a wind turbine installed atop the water tower, and a biofuel-fired combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plant placed at its heart. This multi-pronged approach met (and exceeded) all of the building's power needs – giving it a much-vaunted 'CO2-neutral' tag.

The bio-CHP plant is particularly innovative. It is fed by locally-sourced waste oils, and so happily avoids competition for scant land with food-producing crops. It is also integrated with a heat-and-cold storage system (HCS). That uses the ground to cool the air in periods of heat, and provides a source of warmth during cold snaps, assisting in the building's air-conditioning.

From water to waste to water

The drive for a zero eco-footprint doesn't stop at HVAC, though. It extends to include a full recycling of waste-water, placing the building's draw on the water mains at an absolute minimum.

And the innovative technology driving that waste-water system?

A specially-constructed wetland which receives all of the effluence from the Bussumse Watertoren occupants. The helophytes – bulrushes and reeds – that grow in the wetland are very efficient at filtering out waste. Once purified, the water is stored in a reservoir, and returned to the building, to flush through its toilets once again.

Squaring the sustainability circle

Inside the Bussumse Watertoren, the workers adopt more obvious eco-friendly  measures; double-sided photo-copying, energy efficient devices, and the ubiquitous deployment of LED lights. Even the carpets they walk on subscribe to full-life cycle concepts, being sourced responsibly and recycled at the end of their life. And the sustainability emphasis reaches outside the office too – car drivers are encouraged to adopt A-rated fuel efficient, or electric, vehicles.

Sustainability, it seems, isn't a concept that can be left at the gate, when leaving the office car port, either.

Martin is a freelance writer from the UK, who specializes in writing on the strategic impact of environmental issues. After a 10-year sojourn as an analyst at Brady plc –  a Cambridge-based provider of services to commodity investment banking professionals – Martin set himself up as self-employed writer at the beginning of 2010. Since then he has written for a number of environmental websites and companies, and has been one of the principle journalists for green news website, The Earth Times

The Hidden Benefits of Green Office Buildings

By Joseph Tohill

Despite a lacklustre domestic economy, green office buildings represent a growing share of the US commercial real-estate sector. Just last September, LEED certified its 10,000^th commercial building, marking a major milestone for the highly-esteemed green building rating system. Recently, a new report from CoStar Group revealed that as early as 2009, 50% of all new rentable building area (RBA) was LEED certified.

Why are green office buildings still performing so well? Wouldn’t their higher construction costs make them less desirable in today’s economy?

While it’s true that green office buildings are more expensive to build, they provide a number of benefits for companies seeking to attain a competitive advantage. Some of the benefits are obvious (such as energy savings), while others are less obvious but perhaps no less important.

The Bullitt Center in Seattle

Take the construction of the new Bullitt Center in Seattle.

The Bullitt Foundation designed its new center with one thing in mind: to construct an office building fully self-sufficient in terms of water and electricity with no negative impact on the environment. In short, the Bullitt Foundation wanted to build the greenest office building in the world.

To reduce the project’s carbon footprint, the Bullitt Center will be constructed with materials shipped within a 300 million radius. The wooden frame will only use timbre derived from certified sustainable forests.

But even more ambitious is the center’s ambitious energy and water infrastructure.

The building’s overstory will be adorned with a lattice of solar panels for electricity generation. In the summer, the building will provide surplus electricity to the grid to offset its electricity use in the winter. Rainwater will be collected and stored in a giant cistern beneath the building. It will be treated and then used in the building’s water fountains and washrooms. Finally, nearly all of the light will be provided from the sun, facilitated via high ceilings and tall windows.

Clearly the Bullitt Foundation has done its homework, and when the project is completed later this year, Bullitt will have a 6-story testament of its commitment to sustainability. Not only will the building provide huge energy-savings in the long-term, it will solidify the foundation’s reputation as a green leader.

The Hidden Benefits of Green Office Buildings

But despite all these long-term savings in energy usage, there is still one more benefit that is often neglected by companies on the fence about embracing green offices: higher worker productivity. I like to call this a “hidden” benefit because it’s less tangible than energy savings, but perhaps just as important.

State-of-the-art green office buildings like the Bullitt Center are positive work environments. They feature improved ventilation, better lighting, and highly modern technology. Because they use natural light (and provide great window views) workers are much happier on the job. This translates to more positive and productive workers.

In fact, a study carried out by the Journal of Sustainable Real Estate found that workers in green office buildings generally took less sick-leave and were happier on the job than workers in typical office environments.

And when you consider that employee wages represent a whopping 90 percent of money flow throw office buildings, these less tangible benefits should not be overlooked.

The Future of Green Office Buildings

Green office building developers are beginning to seek out new avenues to remain on the forefront of green technology. Most recently, office buildings are beginning to integrate EV charging stations to allow EV owners to juice up their vehicles while at work. With the emergence of the EV market, EV charging stations will provide a much needed amenity for office workers to charge up their EVs.

In the end, green office buildings will continue to pop-up in cityscapes across the country as companies increasingly embrace environmental objectives and energy savings. And as green building technology continues to improve, office workers could be seeing some remarkable improvements in the environments they work in. 

Joseph Tohill is a freelance writer and online communications specialist for organizations in the sustainability sector. He has a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia and spent most of his academic career studying sustainable urban development; namely the interdisciplinary relationship between built form and natural environment.

Honda Fit EV: Taking the Wrap Off

By Martin Leggett

Say hello to the new Honda Fit EV, the Japanese car-maker's fashionably late arrival to the electric car party, which is to make its Californian and Oregon debut this summer. Cleverly squeezing a high-torque, amp squealing drive-train into the tidy and familiar form of the Honda Fit, the Fit EV could be a real contender for the mainstream. But is Honda hanging back a little too cautiously, to ensure the Fit EV gets due notice on the dance-floor?

Second bite of the cherry

The Fit is Honda's long stay sub-compact model, piling up 350,000 sales since 2006 in the US, earning points for its stylish slant to fuel-efficient motoring. Now it is getting a second bite of the cherry, kitted out with a 92-kW high-density coaxial electric motor, and a 20-kWh air-cooled lithium battery pack. Hook the two together, and owners will feel 189 lb-ft of amp-powered torque driving through its front wheels.

That instant torque is available even at higher speeds, where other electric motors can flag, providing a smooth pull to the top-speed of 90 mph. Sweet as those numbers are, of course, EV figure-spotters have to look beyond nippy responsiveness under the hood. What they want to know is how far, and how 'fast', the battery is. After all, range anxiety is probably the biggest drag for those looking to shell out on an EV.

Fast to charge, fast to drain?

Here the Fit EV is not quite so nippy. Honda has penciled in the Fit's range as 123 miles, but that's based on a cheerfully optimistic driving scenario – the EPA peg that back to 76 miles for real-world driving. Not enough to quell fretting for longer-commute drivers, then. But sub-compacts like the Fit excel in the urban scene, where short hops are the norm; so a sub-100 mile range may not be such an issue for the Fit's intended audience.

The Toyota-plated SCiB battery is better rated for charge performance, though. It can be charged to 80% capacity within fifteen minutes with an 80-amp DC charger (and three-hours for a full top-up). That's twice as fast as a typical Li-ion battery. The SciB has also been shown to hold its charge through up to 4,000 cycles. And because the battery is slung underneath, it doesn't eat into the much-valued luggage space of the Fit, unlike with some other EV models.

Set systems to 'sport'

The balance between performance and range can be tweaked by switching the Fit EV between econ, normal and sport modes. In econ, the range is thrown out by another 17% compared to the normal mode. Flip to sport, and you get the equivalence of a 2.0 liter gas-powered engine under the hood – sans emissions of course.

All told, the Honda Fit EV offers a stable, rather than a stellar, platform for car-buyers leaning towards electric. But will the Fit EV help to stretch that market envelope wider itself, thanks to the Fit's strong established presence? After all, while the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt were the flashy early birds for keen-to-be-clean drivers, Honda’s Fit EV comes to EV motorists with a different appeal – familiarity.

Too much toe-dipping from Honda?

That may be just what the market needs, helping reach beyond the early adopters – who revel in being seen to be green – to the cautious majority, who value solid-as-rock dependability over glitz. Such a case could be made, if it weren't for Honda weighing down the Fit EV with two marketing millstones – low availability and a high price tag.

Initially limited to just 1,100 units, the Fit EV is being offered to customers, in Californian and Oregon, on a screened-request basis only. 2013 will see channels opened out to six selected East Coast markets.

This tentative toe-tipping stands at odds to the possible mass appeal of Honda's new EV. As for coast, while the lease-only price works out at just $399 per month, that's based on an all-in price of $36,625 – double the cost of its fossil-fueled predecessor.

This approach may need to change, if the Honda Fit EV is not to be left as an expensive wall-flower, sat at the back of the all-singing, all-dancing electric vehicle scene.

Martin is a freelance writer from the UK, who specializes in writing on the strategic impact of environmental issues. After a 10-year sojourn as an analyst at Brady plc –  a Cambridge-based provider of services to commodity investment banking professionals – Martin set himself up as self-employed writer at the beginning of 2010. Since then he has written for a number of environmental websites and companies, and has been one of the principle journalists for green news website, The Earth Times

BMW Active E: The Precursor to BMW’s High-end EV line

[Image Source: CleanMPG]

By Joseph Tohill

Earlier this year BMW, began rolling out its latest addition to the EV market: the BMW Active E. In total, 700 Americans will be driving around in the new car – participants in BMW’s field-testing for its upcoming line of EVs. Individuals can drive the Active E on a 24 months lease, paying $449 month after a $2,250 down payment.

Although BMW is only testing the waters with its latest instalment in the EV market, user feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive. If these cars are only a “test”, clearly BMW has big things in store for its official release of the all-electric BMW i3 next year.

According to Rich Steinberg, manager of Electric Vehicle Operations and Strategy in Nashville: “The BMW Active E is part of our ongoing strategy to develop environmentally friendly, yet high performance vehicles.”

And in typical BMW fashion, it has marked its territory in the higher-end of the EV market.

The official range on the Active E is 94 miles. It features a 32 Kwh lithium-ion battery and takes 8.5 seconds to reach 60 miles an hour. All of this is fairly standard stuff for an EV these days.

But where the BMW Active E really shifts ahead is with its superior regenerative breaking and silky-smooth handling.

One reviewer noted that accelerating and breaking could be achieved with just a single pedal. As soon as you release your foot from the accelerator, the car’s regenerative breaking kicks in and begins to slow the vehicle down. Without even touching the break, the car will eventually come to a stop.

Mastering regenerative breaking on the Active E will allow users to get the most out of a single charge.

In terms of features, the BMW boasts all the things one would expect from a luxury vehicle. It comes with a well-designed leather interior, heated seats, on-board navigation (including EV charging station locations), and satellite. Clearly BMW will be targeting consumers with a taste for luxury.

The only question that remains is how BMW’s new line of luxury EVs will fare compared to the other 

EVs on the market. There’s growing competition amongst all the major automakers now to dominate the EV market.

Will the next generation of EV-owners be more inclined to maximize cost-savings by purchasing a cheaper EV, or will they go all out with the purchase of a BMW i3?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Joseph Tohill is a freelance writer and online communications specialist for organizations in the sustainability sector. He has a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of British Columbia and spent most of his academic career studying sustainable urban development; namely the interdisciplinary relationship between built form and natural environment.